"Gens est Slavorum Wilti cognomine dicta,
Proxima litoribus quæ possidet arva supremis
Jungit ubi oceano proprios Germania fines."[5]
Helmold says that they inhabited the part of the coast opposite to the island of Rugen; and hereabouts Adam of Bremen places the Heveldi, and many other Slavonic tribes.[6] I am not aware that any other author than Alfred says, that the Wilti and Heveldi were the same people; but the fact is probable. The Heveldi are of rare occurrence, but not so the Wilti.[7] Ptolemy calls them Βελται—Veltæ or Weltæ—and places them in Prussian Pomerania, between the Vistula and Niemen. Eginhard says that "they are Slavonians who, in our manner, are called Wilsi, but in their own language, Welatibi."[8] Their country was called Wilcia,[9] and, as a branch of them were settled in Batavia about 560, it does not seem very improbable that from them were derived the Wilsæton of the Anglo-Saxon chronicles, meaning the Wilts seated, or settlers in Wilts-shire. The name, as Eginhard has noticed, is Slavic, and is an adoption of welot or weolot, a giant, to denote the strength and fierceness which rendered them formidable neighbours. Heveldi seems to be the same word made emphatic with a foreign addition.
Two other names have been given much trouble to the translators, as well as to Mr. Forster. These are, Mægtha Land and Horiti or Horithi, for both occur, and the latter is not written with the letter thorn, but with a distinct t and h. Alfred has, unquestionably, met with the Slavic gorod, which so frequesntly occurs as the termination of the names of cities in the region where he indicates the seat of his Horiti to be. It signifies a city, and is an etymological equivalent of Goth. gards, a house, Lat. cors, cortis; O.N. gardr, a district, A.-Sax. geard, whence our yard. The Polish form is grodz, and the Sorabic, hrodz. He places the Horiti to the east of the Slavi Dalamanti, who occupied the district north east of Moravia, with the Surpe, that is, Serbi, Servi, on their north, and the Sisle, Slusli, another Slavonic people, on the west. This appears to be the site possessed by the Hunnic founders of Kiow. In Helmold, Chunigord, the city or station of the Huns, is the name of the part of Russia containing Kiow.[10]
To the north of Horiti, says Alfred, is Mægtha Land.—A Finnic tribe, called Magyar, were settled in the 9th century in Mazovia, whence a part of them descended into Hungary. According to Mr. Forster, Mazovia has been called Magan Land; but I can find no trace of that name. I can easily conceive, however, that Magyar and Land might become, in Saxon copying, Mægtha Land, for the country of the Magyar. Elsewhere, Alfred uses Mægtha Land, the land of the Medes, for Persia.
Is there any other printed copy of the Saxon Orosius than Barrington's? for that forbids confidence by a number of needless and unauthorised alterations in most of the pages.
R.T. HAMPSON